Sunday, 2 March 2014

Opportunity Charge

Our house rules are derived from LFS, the Napoleonic rules
from Two Fat Lardies.We had used the
standard rules for about two years, before starting to amend them to suit our
order of battle.Eventually we write a
new set of house rules, but based on the principles of LFS.

We fight twelve “moves” to a wargame day, to fit in with the
12 hour day in our PBEM campaign.Each
move is divided into a “turn” for each of the corps commanders, anything from
one to six per side.Each commander has
a poker chip, which is drawn from a bag until all commanders on both sides have
had their turn.

Our latest wargame is the Battle of Irun.It is an encounter battle with four corps per
side.

The battle opened with two French and one British corps on
the table.This sort of odds would
normally slow down the British deployment, and give a big advantage to the
French.However this game was
different.

We have a rule called Opportunity Charge.It allows cavalry to charge “vulnerable”
enemy brigades during their turn.For
example an infantry brigade in column of march, limbered artillery, the exposed
flank of any brigade or any brigade which has lost its morale and is shaken.

The poker chip principle makes it impossible to know which
side will move first next move.So it
is important not to leave any such vulnerable brigade within charge move of
enemy cavalry at the end of each move.

In our latest wargame the game opened with British cavalry
within charge move, and on the exposed flank, of two French infantry brigades ,
plus limbered corps artillery.The
positions were dictated by the campaign map at the end of the previous campaign
day.The French got to move first, but
the British hussars declared an Opportunity Charge.The hussars passed their morale and
charged.The French infantry failed
their morale test and could not form square.One brigade suffered 50% casualties and routed, the other was shaken.The nearby artillery also failed their
morale and joined the rout.

I like the unpredictability of rules such as this.It allows for the unexpected, particularly
if it is due to one side moving twice (due to the poker chip) before the other
can react.It does not happen, but when
it does it makes the wargame memorable.